


hope you find solace in this

by softsmilesandbrokenhearts



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Happy, Period Typical Attitudes, Retrospective, Sad Paul McCartney, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Love, mates discovering that they aren't very good mates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:40:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24495169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softsmilesandbrokenhearts/pseuds/softsmilesandbrokenhearts
Summary: Paul figures it says something about himself, succeeding in so many aspects in life, and yet failing to maintain the one thing that means the most to him. a cruel voice, one inherently familiar to his soul, speaks out, telling him it’s his fault. Paul agrees.After all, even when he’s a figment of Paul’s drunken imagination, John is always right.Or, the band is breaking up, Paul is learning that maybe pretending he is okay gets him nowhere, and mistakes are made.
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Comments: 1
Kudos: 54





	hope you find solace in this

**Author's Note:**

> this is set in an ambiguous time in the late sixties. i might finalize the date if i add more time specific details but as for now, just know it’s nearly breakup time lol. (that’s not funny i’m not laughing) as always no defamation intended towards anyone mentioned, i certainly don’t own these people.
> 
> tw: for overall uncomfy shit, suicidal ideation, and brief mentions of self-harm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: for overall uncomfy self-deprication, suicial ideation, and brief mentions of self harm
> 
> stay safe folks.

The sixties are a period of growth, and Paul is old enough to understand most of it, but too young to understand the impact this has on himself.

Something about himself has changed lately. Perhaps it can be explained away as growth, leaving this era of his crazy twenties, to something a proper adult should be like.

Or maybe he is just hopelessly holding onto the idea that he could be okay, willfully blind to all the signs that say he’s not.

Paul wouldn’t say he’s unhappy. He isn’t, and the word, the idea of that sort of thing makes his mouth feel funny. He can be unhappy about his mother’s death, unhappy about all sorts of childhood sorrows, but no one is dying, so he can’t be unhappy.

It’s not right, and Paul knows deep down this sort of thinking will get him in trouble.

But he’s not unhappy, not compared to other people around the world, with actual problems to face. He was given so many opportunities and to squander them all on some sort of unsettling feeling would be disrespectful. And really, Paul is happy, content with the life he has built for himself. He has a gorgeous wife, a beautiful home, and a daughter he is lucky enough to call his own. Paul has everything he sings about in songs, everything a young lad like him should want, and still. He can’t dare consider himself unhappy, and so he isn’t. Paul plays everything up to the press, puts on sunny bright smiles and writes joyful songs, almost sickly sweet. All to show he really feels.

The thing is, well, Paul has become a terrific liar.

And once again, maybe that is part of growing up, learning how to manipulate the world, not so weary or scared of what the world can do to you. A foolish notion on his part, the world is far scarier now then it was when he was a teenager, with practically no worries at all. Perhaps he was just foolishly optimistic then, or maybe he has just dissolved into a mushy pile of feelings that don’t quite make sense.

He lies a lot lately, and for the most part people believe him. He doesn’t quite know if that reflects on his talent for it, or if he has become such a prick that people can’t be arsed enough to care. He wants to believe they care, some intrinsic part of his faith for the world, but it’s a bit hard when he is losing faith in himself. And he hates that, despises the sort of idea of being untruthful and really, he wonders how his parents would act if they could understand how low he has fallen. He sometimes catches bits of old interviews they have done, and he’ll quietly mourn the loss of the confident, charismatic man he used to be. Paul still is that man, but it feels ill-fitting, like a game of how long he can pretend that things have changed. 

It’s so fucking demented and he wishes he could find where everything went wrong. 

Paul still likes to believe that it isn’t him mucking things up, but then again that would be lying.

And so, the cycle continues. 

Sometimes, Paul wonders how life would have been if he didn’t pursue music. If he became a dentist or a teacher, something to be proud of, something his family would want to talk about. If he didn’t drop everything and put his everything into the Quarrymen and focused on school like his father wanted him to. He figures that it would have simpler, and also wouldn’t have brought him the happiness that Paul had found in the beginning years of this mess. Then again, he also wouldn’t be so miserable now. He lies to himself sometimes, and he tells himself that it would be easy to start over and not choose this life. Paul is good at lying, but he supposes it’s hard to lie when you’re the one who’s trying to believe it. 

Because despite all the pain and stress, he has experienced so many wonderful things and Paul thinks that wishing for alternate endings is no good to him now.

Still, sometimes when he is alone and drinking in self-pity, he wonders about how life would turn out without John in it. If John and his quiffed hair and wrong lyrics didn’t attract him, or if he listened to his father when he said John Lennon is bad news. Maybe then, he’d be alright.

Of course, all the other lads play a part in it too, but he supposes like most things do, all his problems can be traced back to one issue. And it’s an ugly thought, going through life without John’s voice or his titled warm eyes, and it’s too hot to touch, but Paul touches it anyways until his fingers are burnt red. 

It is a game he plays lately, pressing at all of his failures and insecurities, messing with the bruise that cover his brain, pleased at the way they ache. He presses and presses until they ache and bleed, and even then, fingers stained a metaphorical red, he can’t quite stop. He beats himself over conversations long gone, and he wonders how he could have done things differently, been someone different, just to make things right again.

If Paul was just a better friend, if he had been more interested in George’s lyrics, in Ringo’s attributes to the band. If he was just a better person. 

Sometimes, and this is where the younger version of himself would shy away in disgust, he steals old tips from the sad drained girls he used to fuck back home in Liverpool. He tears apart old safety razors and drags the rusted blade across the pale expanses of his thighs. He bites into his lip, preventing any gasps from escaping his mouth, and he watches the unmarred skin turn ugly, something like penance for how he keeps fucking things up. It’s strangely a soothing pain, one that grounds him and reminds him that his ego can be kept in check. He repeats the motions, eyes flickering to the dull wallpaper in front of him, the cool tile beneath his feet, and he tries to not think about how his life is slowly becoming something akin to a failure. 

Paul doesn’t pretend to be a religious man, but each time he does this, behind a locked bathroom door, he hopes that it will repent all his sins. 

Very rarely, Paul lets himself wonder if he should just leave the band, if it would make things better for everyone. Just packing his bags and leaving without a word, something vindictive letting himself have the last word, never to be seen again. He isn’t so lost in his own head to know that it would ruin things, but some part of him wants the boys to get on without him. Besides things are already fucked, there isn’t a band anymore. Not really, if all the tension and arguments, and cruel grins mean anything, if the sorrow each of them pretends to not have says anything. How they can’t even play music without throwing barbed words and holding back shaking fists, the urge to punch something fierce. Sometimes they aren’t held back, and Paul’s swollen jaw is testament to this, courtesy of one George Harrison.

Or maybe Paul is exaggerating again, maybe Paul just can’t see clearly anymore. He can’t tell if they care anymore, their faces unfamiliar in his drunken haze, this sadness hanging over him. So, he hides away instead, behind his base, his growing smiles, behind the beard that keeps getting longer. It must do something, because no seems to be worried about how he is turning into a ghost, no sympathy for his state. He can’t tell if he likes it like this, or if he wishes they would say something, even if it were a confrontation. 

Ringo had asked him nonchalant the other day, and Paul was too far gone to realize that it was the first sign of outside care he has seen in a while.

“Are you alright then?” Ringo had to shout it, over the sound of the amplified sound of Paul’s bass playing, something angry and resentful seeping into his playing.

They were the only ones at the studio, George off to get lunch, and John somewhere in the building with Yoko, either shooting up more heroin or fucking each other. Both thoughts made him sick to the stomach, so he tried not to think much about any of it. 

“Yeah why?” He responded, setting the bass down, noting a scratch near the base of it, another detriment to his drunken stupors. 

“Its just. You look tired I suppose.” The man offered, and Paul tried to look at him, but his eyes looked so sincere and warm, that it made Paul shaky, with tears he can’t shed. So, he looks back towards his little corner that he’s made for himself, another place to hide.

“Yeah. Just a bit exhausted y’know?” It didn’t really answer anything Ringo wanted to know, and the older man huffs, a little frustrated but accepting. 

“If you say so.” Ringo murmured, eyes unconsciously following the sound of a door creaking open and slamming closed. George entered the studio, looking uncharacteristically happy, and it made Ringo smile, genuine and a bit soft. Paul had watched that, something ugly in the base of his stomach, and he had slinked off to the bathroom to empty his stomach.

And well, that was the extent of it. Complaining about no one caring but shying away from any sort of sincerity. That is just how Paul works these days, afraid and so fucking tired, but unwilling to show it, even though he must be doing a piss poor job at hiding it.

Even rarer does Paul let himself think about himself dying. About how things would play out if he just suddenly died, leaving the Earth and all his misery behind. He wonders about it mostly in the safety of the night, where he doesn’t have to hide his expressions away, morbidly curious of all the what if’s. But as it often does, reality slaps himself back to something a bit more reasonable, and it reminds him of his place. Even if he left, and god forbid the Cute Beatle do something so shockingly inappropriate, the band would suffer from all the repercussions. And Paul’s death would just make things worse.

He will admit late at night, three or four drinks too many, that it isn’t just his fault, and him killing himself won’t solve any issues.

Not any personal ones anyways.

So, it stays a dirty little secret, flickering in his brain as he crosses the street, as he cuts up some lettuce for dinner, when he goes outside in the freezing cold with no shoes. Just idle thoughts on how it could happen if he just moves a bit more to the left, he closed his eyes at the wrong moment. They aren’t particularly strong thoughts, but they are a constant, floating somewhere around his brain. He isn’t actively seeking death, but if it happens like this, maybe it would be for the best.

Still, he wonders how they would all react, what would happen after his departure. Would they care? Would the band somehow fix its problems and get its shit back together? Would they realize some sort of public statement and then go on as if he never existed, Paul just becoming some sort of former bassist of band that continues to achieve long after he’s gone. Some part of him like that idea, that people won’t remember him, left behind in the legacy that the band is building for itself. He wants to be remembered but not like this, not with everything going to shit and not with how awful everything feels.

He isn’t stupid, or even that far gone to think they would mourn him. They would, and it would be horrific to think that one bad year could replace all the memories they have together. He knows that something awful would happen because of his death, and in the center of it, he’d leave his three mates no space to mourn. They’d miss him, he just wishes they wouldn’t.

A cruel voice, one that has become a constant tells himself it doesn’t work like that. Feelings change and affections can turn cold, and maybe they just don’t care anymore. It reminds him of the ugly scoffs and dirty glares he gets from George and John, and the disappointed, frustrated looks Ringo shoots his way. It hurts the most with John, but he supposes it should work like that, mirror images falling apart, a partnership dying. 

Something like being soulmates, burning and stunning, dying a sudden, aching death, as if the years between them meant nothing. 

His brain is like that, luring him into some sense of security before it tears him apart with all his intimate secrets. He thinks that maybe, on those nights where he is particularly useless, and Linda is long gone to bed, that maybe the voice is right.

Worthlessness has never been something Paul used to worry about, but things change, people grow, and maybe Paul wasn’t made for long-term happiness. 

And god, he has ruined Linda, ruined the last good part of his life. She should be with someone proper, someone who doesn’t come home and drink away his heart, falling asleep to avoid thinking about the things he should really address. It’s fucked up to take his suffering out on her, but he doesn’t know how to get better, sober up enough to explain things to her. 

It hurts him, to watch the way she looks at him changes. It’s still so sweet and kind, but it’s underlined with worry and pity, and some sort of fear that Paul doesn’t quite understand, until she catches him cutting one night and she doesn’t say much. Her eyes tell him that she’s know for a while, and maybe that shouldn’t be as relieving as it feels. But he supposes one less person to lie to the better.

She says nothing, and she cleans him up, holding him tight against her breasts. She says I love you, and Paul can’t quite say it back without tearing up. Still the sentiment is there, and he loves her so much, and everything she has done for him.  
And he wants to say he’d change everything if he could stop hurting her like this, but he doesn’t quite emphasize enough to see how he can change. He wishes things were different, that he wasn’t so down, but his life is falling to bits, and he reckons a breakdown is appropriate.

This isn’t a breakdown; ruination is more accurate, but he can’t quite admit that to himself.

Even so, as he wakes up, lying facedown in a musty pillow, he considers not turning over, and letting himself die by her side. She can find someone new, someone who can love her selflessly. Because he is in a rough point, and his heart is divided, and he reckons that even in death he’d still love them both. A false of auburn hair and rimmed glasses flash through his mind, and he turns over, drawing in a deep breath, tears pricking at his eyes. 

He is so tired, and unrequited love isn’t exactly a pain he’s willing to put up with even on a good day.

He is a weak man, and he knows this, but Paul wishes fervently to be someone else. He would trade the fame and the music to not feel so hopeless, to stay a chubby boy eternally grieving over a dead mother and dropping marks in school. He’d have a reason to feel sad then, and then maybe he could manage this all. 

He’d trade this all way if he knew the band would end like this, bitter and broken. Paul figures that is says something about himself, succeeding so early in life, achieving the impossible, but failing to maintain the one thing that has given him purpose. 

A cruel voice, one inherently familiar to his soul, speaks out, telling him that it’s his fault. Paul agrees.

After all, even when he is just a figment of Paul’s drunken imagination, John is always right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is darker piece than my other works, mostly born from my love-hate relationship with the late Beatles era and its angst, and also a depressive episode falling on top of me very suddenly.
> 
> I posted this earlier last year but it was in lowercase and sort of awful so I fixed it up and made it more in character. Unfortunately I think I also made it more sad lol.
> 
> Hopefully this is good and makes you feel something, it certaintly makes me feel a little less pointless and meaningless haha.
> 
> Stay safe and take care ily guys <3

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i wanted to do something more sad, and lately i’ve been feeling off, so who’s better suited to deal with feelings than paul! (i love him, please don’t fight me.) this isn’t finished yet, and i’m still working on some bits, so idk when the next update will be. hope you like it either way, and comments and criticism are always welcome. love you guys :)
> 
> also the title comes from the song white flag by clairo.


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